Kinship

      I would like to introduce my mother Linnell, she was born in Watts, California in South Central Los Angeles. She was raised by her mother Rita who was a factory worker and never had much food on the table. Her mother is French and her father was Irish they were divorced when my mother was a young girl.  She remembers going hungry a lot and sharing lunch with her teacher. Linnell was a small white girl with blond hair and blue eyes living in a predominantly black neighborhood. Although she was one of only a few white people at her school, Linnell felt more comfortable around people of color. My mother did not grow up very religious but she became very spiritual and passionate about equal rights and was very involved in that movement. She came of age in the 1960’s and was and still is a free spirit.  My mother and father lived in Venice beach, Ca. and lived a bohemian beatnik lifestyle for many years together.

      Interviewing my mother was fantastic because I learned of things about my family that I has no idea about. I was mostly comfortable throughout the interview but it did get a little awkward when there was some stuff that she really didn’t want me to write about. I do not think that it affected the thoroughness of the interview because we did talk about it. If I was interviewing someone unrelated to me and I don’t think the interviewee nor I would feel as comfortable talking with each other as my mother and I do.

      The patterns I see in my kinship chart is that my mother was only close with very few in her family. She was only close with her sister and recently her own mother. My mother had a very sad childhood and she was kidnapped by her father only to be sent to live with his mother. Her mother found her and took her back so she had lost ties to her father and his side of the family at a young age.  The families in my family tend to be relatively small on average  from 2-4 kids. There are ethnic differences in my family, my mother married a black man (my father) but I do not think it had a social impact on the family relationships or social interactions due to the fact that my mother had dated black men before and the family lived in a black neighborhood. I think it had to do with the fact my mother was not religious and my uncle Johnny and his family are Mormon and my mother didn’t agree with there lifestyle and did not like religion being pushed down her throat so we were not close with her brother or his family.

      There was no one in my family my mother felt comfortable asking for money, babysitting or favors of any kind. She had asked her mother for money once and was denied so never again and my aunt babysat my brother and I only once too.

I know only a few family members on my mother’s side well and I know mostly the family on my father’s side. I very rarely socialize with my family due to the fact that we are pretty spread out over the country. I do go see my grandma (mom’s mom) every Christmas but really never see my family much except for my mother who lives down the street from me.  Right now in my family the decision making is being done by my mother and aunt who are in charge of my grandmother and her estate due to her declining health.  If you were married into our family we would treat you just like family, but that is me, I guess it did take my husband a few years for him to get in! I feel that the attitudes towards men and women in my family are pretty much equal. Women are treated with respect, I don’t think we would have it any other way!

I have learned that my family needs to get together. Life is too short to let something like religion get in the way of us being a family. It is also hard to maintain that close nit family unit when your family is spread out all over the map. I would like to start calling my family more especially my Dad. I think a call for a family reunion is due!